Newly unsealed court documents from the ongoing antitrust case against Live Nation/Ticketmaster have revealed what concertgoers have long suspected: the company's executives are openly contemptuous of their customers.
In internal communications obtained by federal prosecutors, Live Nation employees joked about ancillary fees with phrases like "robbing them blind, baby" and "these people are so stupid." The documents, filed as part of the Department of Justice's monopoly lawsuit, paint a picture of a company that views its market dominance as license to exploit music fans.
The quotes are striking in their brazenness. These aren't off-the-cuff remarks caught on a hot mic - they're written communications between employees who felt comfortable enough to mock customers in company channels. That comfort comes from knowing there's nowhere else to go. When you control 70% of primary ticketing for major venues, you can charge whatever you want and laugh about it internally.
The revelations come at a crucial moment for the antitrust case, which argues that Live Nation's 2010 merger with Ticketmaster created an illegal monopoly. Consumer advocacy groups have long documented fees that often exceed 25% of a ticket's face value - service charges, processing fees, facility fees, delivery fees for digital tickets that cost nothing to deliver.
Attorney General Merrick Garland has called the case a priority, and these documents provide the kind of smoking-gun evidence that's rare in antitrust litigation. It's one thing to argue a company has monopolistic power; it's another to show them celebrating how thoroughly they're exploiting it.
For music fans, the documents confirm what they've felt every time they've watched a $50 ticket balloon to $75 at checkout. The fees aren't about covering costs - they're about extracting maximum revenue from captive customers. And the people implementing these policies know exactly what they're doing.
The Justice Department is seeking to break up Live Nation/Ticketmaster, arguing that only structural separation can restore competition to the live entertainment market. With evidence like this, their case just got significantly stronger. In Hollywood, nobody knows anything - but in ticketing, we now know exactly what the monopolists think of us.
